BADLAND: More Of A Saunter Than A Gallop

Ah, The Western. A time-honored tradition in motion picture history. The wilds of America were untamed and lawless. Saloons, brothels, and gunfights. Bad men in black hats corrupting the downtrodden until a hero emerges from the sunset to avenge the simple townsfolk and take back their land —

Damn it. I may have spoiled the entirety of writer/director Justin Lee’s Badland. Sorry ’bout that. But is it a spoiler if you’ve definitely seen everything in this film a hundred times over in better old west narratives? So, I ask you, who’s the real bad guy here?

Maybe I’m starting this on a negative note. For that, I apologize. In fact, I liked quite a few things about this film. Truly, I did, and both points will be discussed further. But for now, I’m saddle sore.

A Bootful Of Kindness

Let me explain the header above. “My father must have seen a bootful of kindness in you,” is an actual line Mira Sorvino was told to say. She is wonderful in this and I miss seeing her in more roles, but this kind of awkward “old-timey” dialogue spoken throughout the movie does little to add authenticity to the story. The HBO series Deadwood knew how to lean into the near Shakespearian word salads spoken throughout its run, extracting meaningful verbiage. The lines in Badland don’t play with such polish.

Everything is cliché. Which, to be fair, is a staple of Westerns. Though, to be a truly brilliant Western you must do one of two things, if not both. One, play out the tropes in innovative ways to differentiate from established works. Or two, have a strong enough script to forgive the cliché. This does neither. Badland creates a vague hero in Mathias Breecher (played by Kevin Makely) who bounces from one adventure to the next with crack shot firearm accuracy, an Eastwood grumble, and a bulletproof hide. Unimpeachable, that is, until the end where the screenplay vies for the tension of him being shot. God forbid. Instead, the film is a series of chapters in Breecher’s journey, cut into overly long-winded shorts about the hardships of being a detective tracking down Confederate war criminals all by his lonesome. Along the way, he meets a slew of stereotypical Old West townies who need saving and thus granting Mathias redemption for something or other which is never really fleshed out fully.

What should play as world-building, drags the aforementioned melodrama out through the stilted dialogue and a dire waste of acting talent. Bruce Dern, Wes Studi, Jeff Fahey, and Tony Todd round out the supporting cast with the signature swagger each possesses in their own way. But other than adding a name to the project, the heavy hitters are given little to do if anything. Long diatribes lead to a brief confrontation where the onscreen violence is nothing more than the hero shooting a gun, ducking and shooting until everyone is dead. No fancy finger twirls or trick shots or anything original. Even a bare-knuckle fistfight, which only exists to showcase how ripped Mathias is, lasts about as long as the fight in John Carpenter’s They Live and isn’t half as fun.

Have Trope — Will Travel

Badland tries hard to come across as a serious Western and achieves this in some regards. Cinematography goes for the grandiose when outdoors. Gorgeous sweeping landscapes frame the film as a more thought out venture while sets and wardrobe heighten the effect. The music is typical though well scored even with its overuse in heightening the duller moments of stodgy overdone dialogue between characters.

Most of the action is sparse and unimpressive, lasting only a few seconds on-screen before a bad guy grabs his belly and falls down from a gunshot wound. This is a crime, especially when the scenes of character interaction are so drab. The film feels like a vignette of video game cut scenes one might skip had this been playable. Doing a bit of research into the writer/director, Lee seems to have gotten his start making shorts based on game titles, namely Resident Evil: Welcome To Racoon City (television series), Contra In Real Life (short), and Assassin’s Creed: A Pirates Life (short). Explaining a lot, the concept of tropes weighs heavily with these titles who got their roots from widely known genres the likes of George Romero zombie flicks and Rambo-centric action.

Herein lies the problem. To homage a property or genre is perfectly acceptable. Hell, Tarantino has made a career out of it. But there needs to be a variation or a twist to an old favorite in order to make it your own. Badland merely tells the same story to the same audience and the tale is tired.

Happy Trails To You, Until We Met Again

Before I ride off into the sunset, I would like to say this is not a bad film, per se, more, mismanaged. Given a few more passes on the script, take out the chapter brakes and maybe punch up the action, Badland could have been a modern-day cowboy flick worth the near two hour run time. I would love to recommend this film as a love letter to a genre that might not be as important to younger generations, though the prose may not capture your heart as intended. Stick to Tombstone or early examples of the genre and you will be much better off.

Is there a Western film or show, besides Tombstone, which tickles your fancy for the genre? Film Inquiry would like to know. Comment below and keep the conversation going.

Watch Badland